


Pray With Me

by Fluffyllama (Llama)



Category: Exiles Saga and Galactic Milieu - Julian May
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-28
Updated: 2011-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-28 08:01:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llama/pseuds/Fluffyllama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t remember when the pain started; it feels as if it has always been with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pray With Me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a theatrical muse prompt. Note: Apologies, this fic had the wrong header info and I only just noticed. It has been corrected now, sorry for any confusion!

Kieran never takes his time in the bath, it’s always a quick scrub and out again. It’s always as quietly as he can manage as well; wait until Mom’s medication kicks in for that short period of blessed relief and then in and out of the bathroom, tiptoeing back to his room past the door that doesn’t quite block out the pain. Sometimes he makes it.

He doesn’t remember when the pain started; it feels as if it has always been with him. Other times he thinks he can remember when it was an encouraging voice in his head, not the shrieking and screaming that tears him apart.  
  
He knows where to avoid treading on the threadbare carpet between the bathroom and his room; knows not to even breathe as he passes the door, putting up the strongest barrier he can. Today Pa has left the window open at the end of the hallway and a chilly draught sends a shiver through him as it reaches his wet back and hunched, thin shoulders.

It’s enough.

_Kier Kier baby_

He tries to block it out but she is always stronger than him. He wants to go to his room and dress but she’s pulling him in and it won’t stop until she sees him, he knows that.

Her hands are too wrinkled and dry for her age; even though she seems very old, he knows logically that she isn’t. It helps a little when she pulls him into her sweet sickly-smelling arms, but not much.

_Kier my sweet baby take care of me pray with me_

All loving words now, but if he doesn’t do this it won’t last. He mutters the words under his breath, still louder than the husky whisper from her cracked lips as she presses his small hand in between her dessicated palms.

Today it doesn’t help. He doesn’t know what’s different, but something is. Maybe she’s getting worse. Maybe she is going to die.

Or maybe she is sucking the life from him, from the hand crushed in hers, papery skin rubbing all over it as she feverishly prays and presses it to her lips, rosary beads pressing into his fingers painfully. The towel slips off as he is pulled further up the bed – _how can she suddenly be so strong?_ – and as the pain blossoms again in his head, circles expanding over and over, he knows there will be nothing left of him but a shell if she doesn’t stop soon.

He wonders if Pa would bother to bury him, or whether he’d go in a box for the trash like the Forsters’ cat. He’d like a real grave, if anyone cares.

Even if it only said:

Kieran O’Connor  
1944 - 1952

  



End file.
